My Favorite Part of Ultramarathons
The sun’s rays sink behind the distant hills, and the shadows lengthen. The bugs change; now only the occasional mosquito buzzes past my ears.
It is the time right before sunset, when the animals hurry to complete their last chores of the day, before they either bunk down for the night or set out to begin their hunting.
These transitions between day and night are my favorite part of running ultramarathons. When it happens, I feel an embarrassing sense of intrusion, as if I am somewhere I shouldn’t be; seemingly caught with a hand in a cookie jar, staring into mother’s bemused eyes.
I see a movement in front of me, by the base of the path. A small, dark nose pokes out, and a brown paw tentatively extends beneath it. I stop moving and wait to discern the type of creature. She eases her body onto the path. A porcupine. I hang back, but she sees me and puffs her quills out in irritation. The white tips stand out in sharp relief against bold black.
I give her her space as she waddles down the path in front of me. After traversing a short distance, she disappears into the shrubbery on the opposite side of the path.
I continue, straining to work up to another good ultramarathon pace. At the next station I will reach 53 miles, and my body is beginning to feel the strain. Stopping for the porcupine has made my body’s exhaustion more evident. I feel the first glimmer of the fear I won’t be able to complete the race. Just keep moving, I remind myself, just keep moving.
I glance up to the sky, my habit when I need an energy boost. It’s colored the dim blue of impending dusk, punctuated by the bright silver of the moon. Although the temperature has cooled, the air thickens in a lethargic pause. The atmosphere breathes a brief fermata before the effort to shift to night.
Ever mindful of the time on the race clock, I continue through the shifting air, appreciating nature’s admittance of an outsider in its inner sphere.
I hear the first katydid click, and I know the transition is in its next phase. The pause has ended, and with it, a soft breeze plays across the tall grass and wildflowers. I glance up to the sky again. When did it get so dark? I think to myself. It seems to all happen in a moment.
I notice again the soft swishing of my feet through the grass. Just keep moving. I pass through a cove of trees, nestled next to the river. The air is an enveloped pocket of coolness, and my skin ripples momentarily in goose flesh. I move out of the copse and into the denser, warmer air beyond it.
The katydids and crickets grow louder. The sun moves completely behind the ridge, and I can no longer see the ribbon of light along its peak. The sky is a purple violet near the trees, shifting and shading to soft denim like faded blue jeans at the top.
The call of the night’s first owl reverberates through the trees. It is persistent, calling out over and over in insistent communication. I worry it is calling to me, reprimanding me for trespassing into its realm. Perhaps the animals feel it permissible for humans to visit during the day, normal even. But now, as night falls, is this biped an intrusion?
I have reached the aid station, and am greeted enthusiastically by a volunteer. He begins filling my water bottles as I survey the food offerings. “We have some PB and J wraps,” he nods to a paper plate full of the tortillas. They are spread with peanut butter and jelly, rolled up and cut into one-inch bites. I nod as well before sweeping two into my palm. The sight of the tortilla bites shifts me abruptly back to my childhood. My mother used to make what she called “pinwheels”: tortillas spread with some sort of cream cheese mixture. I’m not sure what else she put in the cream cheese, but we craved them. She would roll the tortillas, refrigerate them and slice into one-inch pinwheels. I used to beg her to let me help make them.
I speed off from the aid station. I feel reinvigorated, and again believe I can do this. Just keep moving, I remind myself. I glance up again. It is completely dark. I am not sure what time it is, but the moon, only a sliver above, glistens in the velvety cobalt blue.
A noise from the river makes me jump, before I realize it is only a frog. The croak doesn’t sound like the eight-year-old version of me thinks it should. Not like the frog from the Little Mermaid, but a strange, angry rebuttal of a sound.
A glimmer ahead shifts my focus. Another runner? No, the light is gone. But then a second light demands my attention, only in a different place. Out over the meadow beside me. Is it a lightning bug? We don’t have lightning bugs where I live, I suppose we are too close to the ocean. Another one blinks, this time to my right. Yes, lightning bugs.
A smile spreads over my face. The bugs blink all around me now, and I am transported to a Virginia neighborhood in the 1980s. My sister is eight and I am six. We wear long cotton nightgowns and our feet are bare. Although we are freshly bathed, our parents don’t seem to mind that we are running around the backyard getting dirty again. We jump and try to catch the bugs in our hands. Our grandmother pads out in her soft, white house shoes and cotton house dress. A lit cigarette dangles between two of her fingers as she grasps the jars. My father takes them from her, pulling out a pocket knife from his jeans pocket. The sharp blade repeatedly pokes blunt holes in the tops of the lids. Grandma then takes them from him and hands one to each of her granddaughters with a smile.
The yard is large, or at least it seems that way to a six-year-old. The seating area by the side door is littered with lawn chairs, each occupied by our parents, grandparents, aunts or uncles. Beside the chairs sits a camper van. To this day, I don’t know where my grandparents used it to travel.
There is one large oak tree in the middle of the yard, and a copse of evergreens at the back. The evergreens seem like a wild forest to us. We only venture there when we are feeling quite brave. In the night, as it is now, we stick to the open grass, jumping and trying to catch the fireflies in our jars. Soon, we display our lanterns with pride, marveling at the electric bugs while tapping the glass of their new homes.
I continue on the trail and out of the meadow, back into the woods. I leave the lightning bugs behind me, and think to myself, just keep moving.
